We recently moved and now we live 3 blocks away from a Jinya Ramen and we couldn’t be happier because you know how we feel about ramen! We had to eat our dinner at 5pm since Howie had a flight to catch afterwards and thought we’d get a happy hour deal or two. However, we were disappointed to see that their happy hour menu didn’t include any ramen and we weren’t interested in any of the food items offered. No worries, we came for ramen anyways!
FIRST THOUGHTS
The restaurant was mostly empty except for two other tables but we’ve seen the lines out the door during lunch time so plan your visit carefully. When we opened menu, our eyes popped wide open. The cheapest bowl of ramen was $14.80 which is about $4 more than we like to pay for a bowl of ramen. We ran a quick poll on our Instagram and noticed over 90% of our followers thought Jinya had increased a lot in prices. Hmm…we were getting worried but figured maybe the ramen would be worth it.
CHICKEN RAMEN
I sighed because this bowl comes with thin noodles instead of my desired thick ones. The server had to keep coming over to refill my water because I drank so much of it! The soup was that salty and I kept reaching for my water glass. I felt that the noodles didn’t hold a lot of bounce but that could be because I’m used to thicker noodles.
The chicken slices were fine but I felt that they were on the smaller side. I felt the strongest part of the bowl was the egg which isn’t saying a lot. For context, I can usually finish 3/4 of my meal before I’m too full and need Howie to help me finish. However, I ate this bowl all by myself when I wasn’t even hungry. That told me that this portion was smaller than other restaurants.
PORK RAMEN
First, Howie needs to work on his noodle pull game!
So Howie felt a lot more positive towards his bowl of ramen than I did towards mine. The broth in his bowl was much thicker. Howie said the fatty pork was perfectly done. I tried his soup and it was definitely not as salty as mine was. It was a nice combination of creaminess and umami flavor.
His bowl also came with thin noodles by default and he said the noodles were on the softer side. This was his preference though so he had no complaints.
CONCLUSION
The chances of us coming back here are slim. The prices were too high compared to the quality of the food that we ate. We can find much better ramen places in Vancouver for a cheaper price. We’ll chalk this one down to an expensive lesson.
